Russian athletes are back in from the cold ahead of LA 2028

The IOC just told the sporting world it's time to stop pretending Russia doesn't exist, at least partway.

On Tuesday, the International Olympic Committee advised sports bodies to scrap the neutral status vetting process that's applied to Russian athletes for the past three years, clearing the way for a more straightforward path to the 2028 Los Angeles Games. It follows a similar easing for Belarus, Russia's military ally, flagged two months ago.

Flags and anthems are still off the table for now, the IOC says that decision comes "at an appropriate time," and Russia's Olympic Committee remains only provisionally reinstated after its October 2023 suspension. So this isn't a full return. It's the vetting layer being dismantled while the symbolic layer stays frozen, at least for the moment.

Context matters here. Only 32 Russian and Belarusian athletes made it through neutral status screening to compete at Paris 2024, combining for five medals after multiple doping controls and constant scrutiny. That's a tiny trickle compared to Russia's usual Olympic presence, which gives you a sense of how tightly the vetting process was actually squeezing numbers down.

Whether this counts as progress or fatigue depends entirely on who you ask. Ukraine and its allies have consistently argued that any softening rewards a war that hasn't stopped. The IOC's own logic has always leaned toward keeping individual athletes separate from state actions, a principle that's easier to hold onto in theory than in a room full of national federations tired of policing it three years running.

Neither side is being unreasonable here, which is precisely why this keeps resurfacing every few months instead of getting resolved. Watch where the flags and anthem decision lands next, because that's the point where symbolism stops being deferred and someone actually has to commit to an answer.